Joe Cooke is the owner of Cooke’s Pie and Mash shop in Hoxton, an East London institution that was founded by his great-grandfather Robert in 1862. According to Joe, his ancestor didn’t just own many pie and mash shops and pubs in the East End, he actually started the pie and mash business by sellingContinue reading “Pies for old-school Cockneys and people from all over the world”
Category Archives: London originals
‘DelBoy I.’ at the Cockney Museum
Last week, I finally visited the Cockney Museum, which had been closed for refurbishment over the winter. It’s just outside Southwest London in Stoneleigh, on the trainline from Waterloo to Dorking. George Major, the Pearly King of Peckham, opened it in 2020, after collecting exhibits for his dream of a Cockney museum all his life.Continue reading “‘DelBoy I.’ at the Cockney Museum”
Chas’n Dave – the ‘Cockney ambassadors’
I met with Kate Garner at the beautiful Brasserie Zédel off Piccadilly Circus. Kate is not only a composer and musician in the London music hall tradition who often performs at Zédel’s, but also comes from a very musical North London family: she is the daughter of Chas Hodges from Chas’n Dave, the iconic CockneyContinue reading “Chas’n Dave – the ‘Cockney ambassadors’”
Master of the Cockney sing-along
This week, I managed to get hold of Tom Carradine, a professional pianist who stages extremely popular ‘Cockney sing-alongs’ in London and (far) beyond. His shows are advertised as ‘an old-fashioned knees-up – Mr Tom Carradine on the ol’ Joanna’ (Cockney rhyming slang for piano). Tom plays old London music hall and Cockney songs toContinue reading “Master of the Cockney sing-along”
Audience with the Pearly Queen of Clapton
Teresa is the Pearly Queen of Clapton and a true Cockney, ‘born within the sound of Bow Bells’. She grew up in Leyton, East London, and now lives in Loughton, just outside of London in Essex, but her family is from all over East London, ‘so that is where our heart is’. Teresa comes fromContinue reading “Audience with the Pearly Queen of Clapton”
Meeting with a Paddington girl
A special highlight before Christmas was my meeting with Elaine in Westbourne Park. Elaine has lived in Westbourne park all her life and on the same road for most of it: ‘Like the song says: I’m a west end girl’. We talked for over two hours and she told me many stories about how theContinue reading “Meeting with a Paddington girl”
Cockney songs
This week I met with Frank, a true East Ender. He lives near Upminster, in the Essex countryside now, but spent all his childhood and youth in Forrest Gate, E7. Frank has lived in many different places in Essex and would call his own accent ‘East End twice removed’. Having worked in the construction industryContinue reading “Cockney songs”
LONDON TALKS 